“Every level of criminal, from the lowest to the highest rungs, can now use one of the deadliest Swiss Army knife hacking toolkits in the world.”

Reports estimate that in the first half of the year SpyEye was being used by around 30 elite cyber gangs that had collectively infected around 2 million computers. That figure is expected to dramatically increase though, as the cost of SpyEye has been dropped from $10,000 to a mere $100. It means that an expensive hacking toolkit, which was usually the preserve of large cyber gangs, has now become affordable to anyone.

SpyEye allows it users to issue commands to networks of thousands of bots. It can automate the extraction of credit card and financial data from infected systems, and configure them to make purchases at online stores.

SpyEye began to come to prominence in 2009 when it set out as a rival to ZEUS, at the time the premier hacking tool. Quickly SpyEye surpassed ZEUS and by the end of 2010 it had become an expensive, user friendly, software program which could be sold, improved and copyrighted. SpyEye offered a sophisticated tool which could be used by anyone for a base price of $6,000. With add-on’s the price could rise to $10,000.

Just over a week ago however, the licensing key for SpyEye was published online. Within hours of this release cyber hackers had created programmes to access the full version of SpyEye (apparently complete with a tutorial!) and re-sell them for $100.

The potential implications of this are huge. Cyber security is an issue which has hit the front pages this year and is becoming a critical issue to businesses and a constant concern for individuals. IT Governance USA is a specialist in cyber security and has created a free white paper on the subject. Download this free white paper today and start taking action to protect you and your business.

IT Governance USA works in partnership with www.27001.com , a specialist in information security management. They have created a Cyber Security Toolkit to help organizations mitigate against the risk of cyber attacks. Read more here >>>